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cynthiaandsamus · 3 years ago

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Custom Toonami Block Week 70 Rundown

Code Geass: So Lelouch is gonna go join Nunally’s ‘let’s all hold hands and get along’ area but literally no one wants to go after Euphy murdered everyone last time. You’d think there’d be at least one dumbass like “Maybe it won’t be a massacre.” But yeah Zero’s like “Oh well I just happen to have a million people I can give to the zone if you exile me and let me go scott free” and everyone’s like “that’s a super shitty thing to do but okay” so then Zero tells Suzaku that culture is stored in the titty and all the one million people do their I am Spartacus thing and wear Zero’s costume which had to be a logistical nightmare, like Zero’s outfit already is pretty expensive with the fancy clothes and the helmet and shit and some of them are randomly customized even though that defeats the purpose like how do you do this on a terrorist budget in a few days without anyone in the government finding out. Like “we received an order for a million pounds of the thing used in Zero’s helmet on the black market” seems like it’d stand out. But yeah, the million Zeros get away, partially because of the “dogs playing basketball” rule that they’re all Zero because their culture of being Zero is stored in their titty which wouldn’t hold up in court but also because if they just kill a million people who’re just trying to leave that’d be bad for the government, not that they’re not used to genocide and being hated as Imperialists but Suzaku specifically doesn’t want that on his and Nunally’s hands while they’re trying to actually do shit for Japan for once. Feel like there’s probably a good cause for peaceful detainment and not letting them just walk out but it’s not like they’d find Lelouch or whoever the supposed second Zero was anyway even if they strip-searched everyone since he was never there and if it isn’t Lelouch the only thing that makes him Zero sight-wise is the mask.

Inuyasha: So yeah we get the conclusion of Shiori’s story for Inuyasha and I just can’t help thinking about how nice it is that she went on to help a lot of other half-demons in Yashahime because of an act of kindness that Inuyasha showed her right here, really good ripple effect shit. But yeah Shiori gets pissed that her grandpa killed her dad and Kekkaishi YEETs him and his followers out of the barrier so Inuyasha can backlash wave the lot of them. We still got fifteen minutes left though so even after Inuyasha says he’s not going to murder a little girl for a powerup that’ll get power crept in a few seasons, Shiori offers him the blood coral crystal to break to give him the powerup instead as thanks for not fucking murdering her. We can’t have the climax of the episode just be Inuyasha smacking a crystal ball though so Taigokumaru’s spirit yeets itself out of the crystal and fights with Inuyasha and attacks Shiori but her dad makes a barrier to bounce him off of so Inuyasha can kill him a second time and get the Red Tessaiga. There’s some navelgazing about how life as a half demon is rough but how Inuyasha thinks that hardship will be good for Shiori and he’s rooting for her in his own way and in Yashahime we see he’s right and all in all that’s pretty nice. Anyway next time we have the Panther Demon filler arc which is honestly probably one of my favorite filler arcs in Inuyasha so that’ll be fun.

Yu Yu Hakusho: Yusuke continues his fight with Suzaku and Suzaku splits himself into seven, which this doesn’t seem to be the Multi-Form or Shadow Clones deal where it divides his energy, each one seems as strong as the original so that’s just kind of broken. Keiko pulls a bait and switch on the zombies which neither Suzaku nor Yusuke see coming despite watching the whole thing on Spirit TV, guess Suzaku had the camera point at the door instead of on Keiko for some reason even though the point is to make Yusuke watch her die. Anyway Yusuke flashes back to Genkai telling him he’s a little bitch that always doubts himself and splits his energy across multiple plans instead of having the confidence to go for something with everything he has and make it work instead of holding back in case it doesn’t. This and remembering his mom crying over his death and all the relationships he’s formed makes him go Super Saiyan in what I can only describe as a Fully Body Shotgun which I don’t think ever comes up again. He knocks down all the Suzakus but it’s just time to start the real fight since Yusuke’s lifted his limiter again like he does in every fight.

Fate Zero: So the clusterfuck in the middle of Saber and Lancer’s battle continues to grow as Iskandar just fucking dares everyone to come at him and five of the seven servants actually do. Gilgamesh is all like “Ugh, why do I have to do this shit, breathing sucks, I’m a king, someone breathe for me.” And tries to murder everyone with spears and shit but turns out Berserker is Darth Vader this time around and uses the force to steal his stolen weapons until Rin’s dad is all like “Dude you’re showing the whole world our fucking moveset, get the fuck out of there. Which given that Gilgamesh is an archer which are supposed to be independent and he’s a fucking snobby asshole, even with a Command Seal I’m surprised that worked. Also Waver’s racist teacher is all “hah wow, I was supposed to have Rider and the token teenager character stole it from me” and Iskandar’s like “I like this kid that’s ride or die with me even though he cries all the time way more than someone who doesn’t even step onto the battlefield you stuck up prick” and then Lancer and Berserker double-team Saber (giggity) and Lancer’s not happy about it because he was fighting Saber first and doesn’t wanna just jump her with Darth Vader but more Command Seals are thrown around until Iskander runs over Darth Vader with his fucking Lightning Chariot and that’s kind of shitty because Racist Teacher man wasted a Command Seal to have Lancer attack Saber for like five seconds before making him retreat. Bug Dude is also kinda freaked out that Berserker just kinda went for Saber meaning she must be pretty pissed at Saber about something anyway so basically everyone runs away and nothing is really accomplished, we didn’t even really need Kiritsugu’s sniper shit or Assassins’s Ninja Bullshit for this everyone’s just had enough and goes home. Also Caster is a creepy yandere simp for Saber but really who isn’t in this series.

Konosuba: So Aqua’s ready to sit in a lake for a few hours to make some money but for the first time in her live her divine booty is not enough to solve this problem. She gets traumatized by getting attacked by demon alligators and Kazuma and co. are honestly uncharacteristically worried about her and ready to try and help her. Meanwhile generic isekai protagonist has a crush on Aqua despite already having his own harem of bland girls and wants to steal Aqua back but basically the whole group is so totally anti-White Knight they can see right through his shit and turn him down. Kazuma beats him up in the most Kazuma way possible and steals his magic sword, proving that not only is he not doing anything to defeat the devil king but he’s actively sabotaging those that are. Aqua fucking decks the guy and blackmails him so she’s rich now and Kazuma’s rich from selling his OP Isekai Cheat Sword. Also the Dullahan dude is back for revenge about bombing his castle and Kazuma’s like “Wait were we still doing that? Thought we stopped, oh well everyone in this world’s problems are our fault somehow so it sounds about right.”

Sailor Moon Crystal: So this time we get Makoto’s story who’s probably my favorite thus far because her job is punching shit and making sure Usagi doesn’t die from the hundreds of things ready to hit her on a daily basis. I have sort of found a redeeming trait for Usaig in that she’s willing to reach out to anyone and everyone, like she’s not what I would call traditionally ‘nice’ but she is friendly and that ability to pull disparate people together does kind of make more sense for why she’d be the leader rather than the other girls who have useful but more specific talents. But yeah continuing with the trend of things teen girls like trying to destroy the world, haunted bridal shop that also reveals Makoto’s tragic backstory of being a more believable version of Tall Girl. Makoto transforms and beats up the Bride lady with a combination of Zenbonzakura Kageyoshi and Azula’s lightning bending, no fair that she gets two powers but I guess she is the tough one so it make sense. Now we’ve basically got the whole crew except for the one that we already know is active but hasn’t joined the group yet so we’ll see how this goes.

Durarara!!: So Mikado’s in deep shit after stealing the girl away that half the town is looking for, all because he has it hammered into his head that whenever a girl asks for his help he has to give it. There’s a bit of discussion about the nature of the Dollars that I’m sure won’t be important later but both Izaya and Celty show up outside Mikado’s school and he’s kind of in an awkward position since there’s nowhere he can really go but home and lead them to the girl. So he decides to find out about them, or at least Celty, Izaya’s just kinda along for the ride. He gets Celty’s backstory and agrees to take her to the other girl only to get jumped by Yagiri thugs and pull out some Death Note animation internet shit that has even Izaya stunned, Mikado about to actually become the main character of this anime for a bit.

#ooc #Toonami #Custom Toonami Block #Code Geass #Inuyasha #Yu Yu Hakusho #Fate Zero #Konosuba #Sailor Moon Crystal #Durarara!!

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spaceorphan18 · 6 years ago

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Finding Kurt Hummel: Transitioning

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6x07: Transitioning

It’s not really a surprise that an episode called Transitioning is in the smack middle of this shortened season. It certainly makes much more sense than Swan Song being in the middle of the season, lol.

So, we get a lot about Beiste, and Trans rights, and a whole lot of stuff I’m happy not to touch. And we get a, well, sort of awkward Kurt and Blaine story. Truth time - I was really disappointed by this episode first time around, because I wanted it to do more. It’s grown on me a lot, but I still have a few minor nitpicks about it. But - the two things that really stand out to me in retrospect are a) this particular story line is more about Blaine than Kurt -- Blaine’s the one going through a transitional period back to Kurt and b) the pacing of their story is fine through the episode - it’s really, unfortunately, the wedding episode the botches the ending.

Growing Up

It’s nine minutes into the episode before we see our dear Kurt. A quarter of the episode! Ug!!

And - it’s Sam who’s carrying Rachel’s emotional baggage this week and dragging Kurt with him. So, Rachel’s dads are selling the house (which is the reason they got a divorce - so that Rachel is forced to move out and grow up. Good lord the lengths these writers go to - to teach Rachel a lesson). Sam goes on about how Rachel’s making a difficult transition into adulthood - one that they’re all going through, but the rest of the characters don’t matter - just Rachel. She’ll carry this theme for all of them, lol.

I also love how Glee’s like - okay, bam, Rachel is now dealing with adulthood, as if the past few years haven’t really counted. But - you know, it’s the end of the series, and that’s when these big life changes actually happen.

Anyway - anyone up for meta’ing the giant spider on Kurt’s shoulder?

Wheel of Destiny

So - they interrupt the weekly lesson of Ohio artists (sorry Kitty, no Marilyn Manson for you), so they weekly theme can be transitioning. Kurt says that sometimes life throws you a curveball and sometimes you just have to go with it. Huh. Foreshadowing? I think so...

Blaine then goes on this long thing about Rachel having trouble facing adulthood, and how are they going to help her deal? Why - throwing a party because that’s what adults do, lol.

So. Picking names out of a hat for duet partners is boring, so Artie constructed a giant wheel of names! I mean, why not - it’s fun. And it’s Kurt turn! The wheel /almost/ lands on Artie, but Kurt gives destiny a little push and makes it go to Blaine. And -- just look how shocked he is for that to have happened, lol. I love this Kurt - manipulating things to turn out how he wants them. I haven’t seen him pull this kinda thing in a long time, and it’s hilarious and adorable. You go sing that duet with your sweetheart, Kurt!

After the meeting - Kurt catches up to Blaine (who is kinda secretly thrilled with Kurt’s meddling). However - Blaine’s concerned about the whole thing - cause Karofsky might just get jealous. Kurt thinks that’s silly -- and there’s a little bit of frustration there - cause I mean, Karofsky already has him as a boyfriend, he can’t keep them from being friends, too...

Blaine states that Karofsky might think there’s something still between them. And Blaine wants Kurt to say -- why yes, yes there is. But he doesn’t - cause he feels like Blaine’s made his choice, so really, Kurt needs a sign from Blaine that there isn’t... Hmmm, I wonder if that’ll happen.

And then we get this whole awkward hug thing, which Kurt isn’t really sure what to do with. And I’m not really sure what to do with Kurt’s final reaction here that’s a little -- oh, well, huh, that just happened. I would have Kurt smile a little at the end of it - but I guess the director wanted to go for ambiguous?

Which leads me to say this -- this episode I found difficult and unsatisfying the first time I watched it. It’s grown on me a lot since then, but I think one of the things I was jarred by was that up until this point, we’ve had mainly Kurt’s POV on the whole break up thing - but this episode is nearly all Blaine’s POV. And I get it, we needed to get him to the point of breaking it off with Karofsky. But seeing everything through Blaine’s eyes when we’ve been with Kurt so much this season feels like a strange switch up in a few places. This, I think, is one of them.

Everyone’s Favorite Gays

So -- Rachel’s party has started, and it must be a different day because Kurt has changed his clothes. Also - Sam mentions he’s slipped a little something in Kurt’s drink - which is a nod to the fact that he’s over 21 now. I mean, we were all waiting for that top happen, this is just confirmation.

I’m also slightly uncomfortable that a group of college students who are acting as teachers and mentors have invited a bunch of high schoolers to a party with alcohol at it - but Glee doesn’t seem to care, so I’ll just look away. It’s not like it’s a plot point. Though, man, who wouldn’t want to see Drunk!Kurt - that would have been fun.

Anyway - Mercedes and Roderick sing All About That Bass - and it’s super fun and light. Kurt’s not in it very much - but he’s bopping along right with Mercedes. And one point Blaine shuffles over towards him, and they dance together for a hot second - but then Kurt’s mysteriously absent for the last minute or so of the song. Not sure what happened there.

So - after a scene of Rachel and Sam hooking up because Rachel’s afraid to leave her childhood behind (um, okay fine) - we get Kurt and Blaine’s duet, which is Somebody Loves You. And I just love every iota of this song. The last time either of them sang was that dreary and depressing Carole King song back in Jagged Little Tapestry - now they have a fun, upbeat, song about being there for the person you’re in love with.

I could pretty much quote all of the lyrics here, oh and here I will...

Who’s around when the days feel long Who’s around when you can’t be strong Who’s around when you’re losing your mind Who cares that you get home safe Who knows you can’t be replaced Who thinks that you’re one of a kind

Somebody misses you when you’re away They wanna wake up with you everyday Somebody wants to hear you say Ooh somebody loves you Ooh somebody loves you Ooh somebody loves you Ooh somebody loves you Ooh somebody loves you

I’m around when your head is heavy I’m around when your hands aren’t steady I’m around when your day’s gone all wrong I care that you feel at home 'Cause I know that you feel alone I think you’re going to miss me when I’m gone

Somebody misses you when you’re away They wanna wake up with you everyday Somebody wants…

So - the thing I love about this song is that Kurt and Blaine pretty much trade off on all the lines. But the point is - this song is about both of them, and how they feel about each other. I love the message of - hey, someone loves you - and they’re going to be there for you when life sucks. I think especially, I enjoy the part where it says - somebody misses you when you’re away. Cause I have to wonder if they are back at the point where they miss each other when they’re not around.

I’d also love to know how they decided this would be a good song to sing. Cause, seriously boys, serious overtones here, lol. Plus - I want all the texts and conversations they had about doing the song -- more reconnecting!!

While this song is one of my favorite Klaine duets - I’m not sure it’s one of my favorite performances. It’s kinda reminds me of Just Can’t Get Enough - when there’s a ton of other things going on taking away from the Klaine time, lol!

But importantly - Kurt’s just having a fun time, sing his little heart out, wearing an astronaut costume, and playing with a blue feather boa. (Oh, the boas are their proposal colors - nice touch props.)

And of course, during the song -- Blaine is zeroed in on. He’s getting his heart eyes back - because as Kurt just kind of bops around in (sorta) his own little world - Blaine’s noticing, and falling in love again. We’re almost there, guys... almost.

After the show’s over - Blaine decides to get outta there - because the feelings are too much!! But he claims it’s because of a Karofsky reason. Feeling guilty, Blaine - uh, yeah something like that.

Anyway, Kurt is a little bummed he has to go. He had a ton of fun dueting with Blaine, and he’s missed it because they haven’t done it in a while. (Also a metaphor, people!! okay maybe not - but I’m making it into one.) Anyway - all this talk brings them back to Baby, It’s Cold Outside - yes, the time they did sound the greatest. And Kurt admits that way back when - all he wanted was to make out with Blaine.

It’s a sweet little moment at they remember - and Blaine wonders why he just didn’t kiss him - and Kurt throws out the whole Jeremiah thing (god - you guys remember that??) Well, Kurt and Blaine barely remember that - because Kurt doesn’t remember the dude’s name, and Blaine totally forgot the guy existed. Because in this moment, they’ve both only got heart eyes for each other.

Kurt then starts in on how crazy it is that some people mean a lot to you at some point in time -- and then stops.... because Blaine’s lips come crashing to his. But.. I kind of love this little moment, where - it’s sorta like saying, oh hey, we meant so much to each other, and then you move on, but nope - sometimes some people mean so much to you -- and they still do after all the time that’s passed, and after all the stupid things you’ve done.

So, um, yeah, Blaine and Kurt are kissing again. See - the kiss in the elevator? That was a forced thing - and yeah, they felt something, but it wasn’t of their own volition. This kiss is mostly for Blaine - a chance for him to figure out if what he felt in the elevator was real, or if it was just the heat and the manipulation. Turns out - oops, yeah, totally still has feelings for Kurt... And thus, he jets outta there, cause he still, technically, has a boyfriend waiting at home for him - and he really doesn’t need to add another cheating incident.

Meanwhile - Kurt’s just stunned. Blaine not reciprocating back is something he was beginning to get used to. Blaine turned him down when Kurt came back for him. Blaine was the one that insisted that the elevator kiss meant nothing. Kurt’s happy that their friendship is back, and all the rest of it he can compartmentalize. But this? This is confirmation that Blaine still has feelings, and that’s something huge!

Kurt’s left kinda stunned - what does all that mean? Why did he do that? Does he want more? Why’d he run off? Just a lot of things swimming through Kurt’s head as Blaine pretty much runs away.

I’m okay that Kurt doesn’t run back after him -- this moment is for Blaine to realize his feelings. Kurt already knows his, and he’s not going to push at Blaine any further than he already has.

But -- I will say this is where the narrative gets a little clunky heading into the wedding episode. Blaine’s still got some stuff to do -- mainly break up with Karofsky. But really, this is the point where Kurt needed to ditch Walter and have a conversation with Blaine about feelings - because clearly feelings are still being had. Unfortunately, this is not what we get (because Glee needs it’s third party drama). But I’ll get more into that when it’s more relevant.

Time After Time

Klaine time is cut short by Rachel and Sam needing to sing 80s love ballads to each other. And then there’s a whole montage where they all help Rachel take down her memory wall - and this is the closet we get to a clip episode, lol (which is fine - clip episodes are dumb).

I don’t know what picture Kurt takes down! But, you know, it’s one of those moments where you look back at the old memory and smile, but it’s fine because growing up isn’t a bad thing. It’s just... different.

Also Kurt (and Blaine) are helping Rachel move -- I kind of wonder what awkward conversations happened that day that we didn’t get to see, cause we know from Karofsky it’s been a few days since the party before they break up. Ug, Glee, all these untapped things...

The Break-Up

Obviously, Kurt’s not in this scene, but I feel the need to go over it, because it does, in part, pertain to Kurt. And because I think it’s a nice scene. I’m going to give Karofsky a little bit of credit here, and say he isn’t entirely dumb. He knows Blaine’s been acting weird, and he’s known that since Kurt’s been back in town, their relationship wouldn’t last that much longer. (So then why did you move in with him, weirdo?)

Blaine’s been feeling guilty - because Karofsky turned out to be an okay guy, and Blaine had convinced himself that he really had moved on past Kurt. Well, no, everyone and Karofsky could see otherwise. And Karofsky is pretty nice about the whole thing (which I think is to show just how much Karofsky has grown, too, over the years). He’s got a whole bunch of guys ready and willing to date him. It’ll suck - but Blaine can’t change his heart and more than Kurt can. So Karofsky let’s him go.

I think one of the interesting things in this conversation, is that Karofsky tells Blaine to just tell Kurt, not sing it. And I feel like that goes with the whole growing up theme. A lot of the time, these boys have sung their emotions through song - and that’s fine, but it’s also been part of the fantasy -- but part of the Klaine narrative has been a shift from fantasy to reality, and this is one of the last parts. And Blaine’s ready to take that step - to grow up and be a real boy, and be okay in his not-ever-changing feelings towards Kurt.

So - Blaine gets running and goes for Kurt. How does he know Kurt’s there? Is this just after school? Why is Walter meeting him there of all places? Idk - the set up of this scene is a little awkward when you thinking about it too much, but I’m really not supposed to.

The point is -- Blaine is ready to confess his love to Kurt -- again. He even wears the bowtie he wore at the proposal (do you think Kurt didn’t notice that? He did). But --- one awkward little thing. Kurt’s about to go on a double date with Walter, Rachel, and Sam.

So Blaine -- doesn’t say anything. And actually -- this is a good thing for Blaine! Honestly, it is -- it shows growth. He let his life be dictated by his relationship with Kurt once, and he’s going to do what he didn’t before -- let go and let it be. It’s not an appropriate time for Blaine to tell Kurt that he and Karofsky broke up. But even more so, it’s also not his place to intervene in Kurt’s dating life and more than it was Kurt’s to intervene in his relationship with Karofsky. Blaine’s trying to give Kurt the space he hadn’t given Kurt before.

Kurt lingers just a little as they all head out. He knows Blaine’s lying about being there for Rachel. There’s a little bit of longing there, and a lot of concern. And oh the angst is hard core in this moment, as Blaine just stands their alone.

Kurt knows and is aware that Blaine’s feeling something. He’s ready for Blaine to say something. Look, Walter does not matter (and by the sound of it, Kurt’s been talking to Walter a lot about Blaine - since Walter clearly knows who he is, and is slightly feigning politeness when Blaine shows up). But Kurt’s ditched both Chandler and Adam pretty quickly for Blaine, and he’ll do it again with Walter.

Just this scene -- isn’t the right time.

This scene, actually, works for me pretty well - and I’m not frustrated with this episode like I was when I first saw it, because this is the transition episode, it’s supposed to end on this angsty note. My issues are really with the beginning of the wedding episode. It’s clear they wanted them both to have a run to the other moment - and sure, Kurt will do that -- but Kurt lacks a defining catalyst for him to do that, which makes it feel a bit awkward and weird. But, I’ll dig into that in the next episode.

Turning the Corner

I am not going to comment about the Beiste story line - because I don’t have an opinion on it, nor do I think it’s my place to have an opinion on it. But it’s nice that the trans choir had a chance in the spotlight on this show - and it really is a lovely moment. Kurt and Co are off to the side cheering them along.

Hey! It’s Kurt and a piano - I kinda like that that’s still a thing.

I don’t have a whole lot to say about this scene - I feel like Will coming back to McKinley marks the beginning of the end for the narrative focus on Kurt this season. Even this scene is really more about the dynamic of Will and Rachel - Kurt just kinda happens to be there.

But, I mean, part of the whole transition theme is to get these guys in position to wrap up their story. Will is going to be back at McKinley, while Kurt and Rachel go off to do what they’re supposed to do.

The best part of this little ending scene, however, is the last bit. First of all, Kurt can’t call Will ‘Will’ - because that would be weird. (Just the way Chris says it cracks me up). And then Kurt wants to do a Britney 3.0 week? Really Kurt? Really? And then Will asks if the kids have emotional issues, and Kurt’s like - yeah, I don’t get involved in that. BECAUSE SERIOUSLY HAVE SOME DISTANCE BETWEEN YOU AND YOUR KIDS WILL!!

But yeah - it’s a little bittersweet of a moment as we wrap up a lot of what I liked about the season to move on to things I’m not as fond of. Ah well. :)

#finding kh #kurt hummel

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crystalelemental · 6 years ago

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FE Fates Replay - Part 6

Okay...okay, I think I’m over Peri being here. Kinda. Not really, but enough to move on with our lives. God I hate her... Her levels have been better than some of my units with Aptitude! You couldn’t even just make her a bad unit?!

Ugh, whatever, chapter 12. The map itself is actually really cool. The idea is that there are a ton of jars lining the field, and they’re filled with poison or medicine. You can tell which is which when you hover over them. Attacking a medicine jar heals you or increases stats or something, for all units within a few spaces. Poison harms you, brings you down to half HP, or lowers stats, again, for all units with a few spaces. The concept of the map is to navigate through the maze by breaking the medicine pots strategically to make your way forward. I actually really like the concept of the map. I’m just...not entirely clear why this place, the most advanced medicinal center of the world, has a bunch of jars of poison laying out. Or the medicine, for that matter. You’d think they’d have a storage space for that shit, instead of leaving it lying around. Kinda strange, when you think about it.

Anyway, Ryoma is here, but you don’t have to fight him. You can either beat him, or escape within 16 turns. Failure to do so probably means Elise dies, since you can’t use her this chapter because of the illness. Saizo and Kagero are the mini-bosses, in a sense. They hover right near that nice dragon vein that shatters all the jars, and are paired up so they’re more defensive. Frankly, they seem kinda scary. High speed, high evasion, able to hit close or distant foes, and having an attack on them just negated if you miss too often? Pretty brutal. Or, well, it would’ve been, if Dragon Corrin wasn’t huge. She basically one-shot Saizo right away, and then massacred Kagero. It was not even fair, frankly. They didn’t deserve that hard an ass-whupping.

Now here’s where I want to note again: I am playing Casual. So at this point, I made a save, and did two different approaches. One was breaking all the jars instantly and seeing how that played out, and the other was leaving them. Leaving them lets you be a bit more precise in your movements, but I honestly found breaking them all immediately to be way more effective. A lot of enemies get hit with the poison, and since you’re causing the break, you can set up your units out of harm’s way. That said, this does immediately open up the path for like 10 ranged enemy units to swarm you, and most are ninjas so your defenses drop really fast. It’s surprisingly dangerous. I’m sure there’s a better way to handle this map, but we’re on a timer here so instead, Dragon Corrin is just going to bait all your fuckers out and take like no damage, then have everyone else run in and smash them to death. With that, all the remains is Ryoma. Who is also no match for Dragon Corrin’s hugeness. I paired her up with Nyx, and she deal something outrageous like 25 damage to Ryoma in that single hit, and took like 6. Being a dragon is kickass. Her dialogue with Ryoma is about the same as usual, but I did have Azura land the final blow, getting her unique dialogue with Ryoma as well. Honestly, it’s more of the “Ah, so you’ve betrayed us Azura!” stuff, and how I guess nobody from Nohr can be trusted.

Look...I get it. Nohr is the instigator in a war here. They are, by all accounts, the bad guys here. But my god if I’m not tired of having every single conversation with the Hoshidans turn into then yelling about all Nohrians being scum, and how being treacherous is just in their blood, yadda yadda. I know I shouldn’t conceptualize it this way, but my god do the Hoshidans come off as way more belligerent. Sure, we have the inside perspective of what the Nohrians in general are like, being inside the kingdom, but like...okay, imagine in Heroes, if everyone who met Laegjarn and Laevatein just kept shouting about how they’re horrible awful people and their whole kingdom is a bunch of back-stabbing sub-humans. That’s basically how Hoshido approaches Nohr, solely because the king is insane and evil. I get that they’re angry, and they’re right to be so, but their approach to people legitimately trying to act with a sense of decorum and decency is still to constantly call them scum and dismiss the whole kingdom. Seriously, fuck you guys.

After Ryoma gets fucking bodied, Elise is given the medicine and is back to full strength! From here we are given our next assignment. There’s another rebellion in Cheve, and we’re to put it down. Boy Garon, you’re sure doing a great job leading, what with the constant rebellions going on. So, off to Cheve it is, where we meet...oh god yes. It’s Takumi again. Oh man, I am going to kick his ass into the fucking dirt. He yells more stuff about Nohr being traitors and shoots Elise with an arrow, securing his death. The rebellion is all mad and shit, and Corrin gives another order to not kill anyone. Early on, we get two new characters, Benny and Charlotte. Benny doesn’t stand out much at all, so not much to report. Charlotte...is the only character whose outfit might be worse than Camilla’s. The win still goes to Camilla, because...my god, lady. But Charlotte is a front-line warrior, who’s barely wearing clothes. I think I’d be less pissed if her defense growth wasn’t so high. Look, this is a series with units in heavy armor and units in cloth armor. There’s meant to be a distinction in which stats are good. Her having great defense is not following the damned rules! Also I think the armor part above the cleavage pisses me off too. Like, if you’re going for the whole seductive appearance, go all out. That stupid little bit of armor ain’t doin’ shit anyway. That said though, her introduction is threatening to kill everyone for being too noisy at night, so like...I can relate. Might be another situation of “solid character, shitty costume.” But she sucks up to Corrin really hard, so she’s kind of all about the attention from others, and is a bit of a gold-digger in general. So we’ll see if that goes anywhere in supports.

Map itself isn’t that interesting, so once you win, Hans, of course, does his thing and starts killing everyone. “Uh, um...the king! Yeah, the king totally told me to do it, so you gotta follow my lead on this one!” Camilla apparently agrees and insists that there’s nothing we can do here. Listen...I’m pretty sure there’s a solid argument for not listening to the current commanding officer being a punishable offense. I get the king’s decree and all, but you know how Leo and the others constantly think around the problem and look like they’re obeying but don’t actually obey? Yeah. This is like...the easiest time to do that. Evacuate the townsfolk and sticking Camilla’s axe in the back of Hans’ skull, and call it a day. The village is gone, as far as the king knows, and Hans’ death was in battle. They don’t know the difference. “Oh, but Iago might be spying on them.” Bullshit. Iago could be doing a lot of things, but he only shows up to be slightly annoying. Besides, if he were really so vigilant, then Leo wouldn’t be able to pull of anything he’s pulled off in the game. We can’t throw out “Iago is watching” as a convenient catch-all for everyone, except for Leo because the plot needs to make us think that he’s the clever one so no one else is allowed to think around problems.

Chapter 14, the group arrives for some more rest in Cyrkensia, which mostly seems to be about a big theater. It’s a neutral territory, which I wasn’t aware existed in this conflict. Leo finally joins us and is around, I guess. Corrin attempts to confront Garon about the situation in Cheve, and he’s just like “Good job on killing all those innocents. I hear you even seemed to enjoy the work. That’s the kind of thing I expect of you.” Like, buddy. Guy. Are you an idiot? You know full damn well Hans was full of shit on that report, and by now you know that Corrin wasn’t going to go along with it either. Honestly, this is the biggest problem with Garon, he’s inconsistent. For such a merciless guy, he sure keeps giving Corrin a ton of second chances after she constantly and consistently defies him. Almost like...everyone’s kinda full of shit? And that Corrin can do whatever she wants because plot armor? Weird.

Azur-uh, the totally mysterious performer on stage, gosh-golly who could it be, attempts to sing this magic song that is too lit for the king to handle, so he has a combined orgasm/heart attack and nearly bites it. Iago, ever the clever advisor, is like “HOLY SHIT, THAT PERFORMER CAST A CURSE ON THE KING!” I...don’t think that’s particularly likely, guy. But no, everyone just goes along with that, as if it’s the obvious answer. So yeah, I guess that’s what we’re doing now. Catch the mysterious singer. Oh, wait, the Hoshidans are here. Better fight them first.

Keaton shows up, mostly because he has no sense of direction and kinda just bumblefucked his way here. He seems cool. Wolf man that collects bugs and shit. He’s alright. The map itself was pretty uninteresting. Mostly it’s just a lot of flying and ranged units on very narrow paths, so it’s kinda hard to defend everyone effectively when the enemy is so much less hindered by the terrain. Also there’s a cleric who uses the Freeze staff, and my god am I already getting tired of that one.

After the map, Garon commands you to kill all the performers in this neutral territory, because that’ll go over well on the global stage. Sure doubt that’ll set the neutral territories in motion against you. Corrin is mortified and does that arguing thing, and Leo gets to be the only smart one and takes her aside, and tells her that they’re going to follow orders by looking in really unlikely places so everyone can escape. See, this is what I’m talking about! Iago’s literally in this general area, and yet the plan is spelled out and carried out without a hitch! Why couldn’t anyone have figured this out back in Cheve?!

Chapter 15, this is another fun map. Corrin is still upset about all the needless killing lately, and sees Azura taking a walk as well. Thinking about how similar their situations are, she follows, and finds Azura sinking into a lake! Fearful that she’s drowning, Corrin chases Azura, and falls through the lake herself, into this mystery world full of weird soldiers that are apparently not able to feel any emotion at all and just seek to kill. Gunter shows up and is apparently alive and well here, so that’s cool. Really, there’s a lot I can recall that pisses me off about this hidden world, but that’s for a much later time when they try to explain shit. For now, just know that I hate this place.

The map itself is neat. The dragon vein splits your party into two copies, one in the north and one in the south. A unit and their copy share damage and stat changes, so anything that hurts one hurts the other. Also only the real Azura in the north can do the singing thing. It’s a neat concept, and having only three units to do it is an interesting limitation, but...one of them is Azura, who is very weak, and her copy can’t even provide multiple turns. And the other is Gunter, whose stats are not terrible but who comes with no preparation and the worst growths in the entire game for some reason. At least you get a bunch of stat upgrading items if you can clear it fully.

Now...this is where things get dumb. Azura informs you that you must jump off this cliff, and you’ll arrive at the bottomless pit that Gunter got kicked into. Why? Dunno, that’s just how they’re connected. Corrin asks why they can’t just go back through the water, and Azura informs her that only Azura and Corrin are able to do that, so Gunter would get left behind. Corrin asks the logical follow up of “Why the hell would that be the case?” but this question is ignored so that there’s more shit they can explain in the true route. I’d call this foreshadowing, but I think foreshadowing comes with a degree of subtlety. Azura jumps, and Corrin follows, with Gunter going last. Oh, I forgot something. Azura informs them that “time flows differently in this hidden world,” which is bullshit code for “we needed a way to get Corrin and Azura alone for this next scene, so Gunter not showing up immediately with them is because the flow of time is convoluted.” So begins the true contrivance train. Azura uses a magic crystal from the hidden world that can show you the truth of things. She uses this to show Corrin the truth of King Garon, that he is a weird goo monster! Literally, he’s made of goo. Callie didn’t believe me when I called him a goo monster, but she has since acknowledged this is the only explanation for him. What does this mean? No idea. Initially, I would’ve said he was killed and replaced by the thing, but Azura further explains that her performance in Cyrkensia (*gasp* It was her the whole time?!), was to restore Garon to his senses, implying that he’s still the same human, just corrupted into...whatever this is. Somehow. God, I hope they can explain how the fuck this happened, but I doubt they can. Azura explains that this song was the only way to restore him, and that it failing means there’s only one option - regicide. About time someone on this fucking team started talking any sense.

CONTRIVANCE TWO! Corrin says no one else would go along with this, and that they can’t tell the other siblings about this because, as Azura explained earlier, if you talk about the other world, you’re cursed and get drawn back in, never to leave. Because if you could just talk about the problem, then this entire plot, from start to fucking finish, would be resolved in the span of like 5 minutes. We needed a contrivance to say why they can’t just do that. But hey, you know, Awakening’s story just wasn’t that good, and we’re here to do a better job. They remember the Hoshidan throne, and that sitting upon it would restore someone’s true memories and shit, so their new plan is to gain Garon’s trust and have him sit atop that throne and be revealed as a good monster. So let’s just run with that.

Chapter 16, Xander finally joins us! He has a nice introduction with Corrin and Azura in particular, mentioning that when Azura came to Nohr, it was with Garon’s second wife, Arete. Now...I’m confused. So, diving into things from my last playthrough, Mikoto and Arete are siblings, from Valla. Arete had Azura before marrying Garon, so I’m assuming that Garon must’ve already had his four kids by the time she shows up, since none of the Nohrian siblings are apparently related. But Xander only mentions Camilla and “later, Leo” in his explanation of the other siblings liking her despite the masses not liking her. So...when were the kids born? Because in addition to this, apparently Elise has no memories of her father ever being a good person, which I believe happened shortly after Arete, who must’ve come in after Leo was born but maybe not before Elise? It’s so fucking confusing.

Anyway, we’re on the direct war-path with Hoshido. We’re told to go by sea, since they’d never expect a sea-based attack! Garon makes some comment about outsmarting them at every turn, and it’s like...guy, listen. I know you think this is super clever, but unless the Hoshidans are full-on dumbasses, they thought about the fact that the navy can get to them too. Iago also attempts to be a shit, by asking where Corrin and Azura went last night. Corrin, in the span of like two seconds, seems to have learned how to lie really well, and gives the story that they went out for a stroll, encountered some unknown soldiers, and killed them all. She even parrots Garon’s thing about rebellion and seeds and all that. Our girl is learning...

No sooner do you leave port than you are besieged by pirates. Yes, pirates have snuck aboard, and are taking all the gold you set off with! ...a few questions. (1) Why is this gold not in your pockets? (2) When you win, why is some of the money gone forever? You’re at sea, and there are no pirate vessels nearby. They all snuck aboard ahead of time, and have no exit point. So where the hell did the money go? This mechanic makes no sense. I will admit though, I do like the idea of balancing keeping your characters alive, and saving as much money as you can in this kind of route where funds are limited. It’s a cool idea, it just doesn’t make sense. You’ll also note that the goal is “beat the boss,” but the boss isn’t present. Part of your goal is to identify which Nohrian soldier is in disguise, and out them as the leader. Again, really cool idea, for a fairly nonsense map.

There isn’t a ton going on with the map outside of this, but you unmake the boss, Shura, and probably kick his ass really hard now that you have Xander. Shura talks a lot, but the only thing of value he says is that he’s the one who had kidnapped Azura as a baby, under orders from Yukimura, the tactician for Hoshido. Shura explains that he doesn’t really have allegiance to either nation, but wants to avenge the death of his clan. You are given the option to kill him or spare his life. I sincerely thought about killing him, just to know what happens, but I did let him live. Corrin thinks he deserves a break after all the shit that’s happened to him, so that’s fair I guess. With this, we press on toward Hoshido.

UGH. God, I knew the plot would take a downturn, and here we are. EVERYTHING about that hidden world, Valla, is just stupid beyond words. I hate its existence. Even just smaller things at this point bother me. There’s no reason Leo has to be the only one with an ounce of sense. Hell, he even states that all the siblings have become masters of seeming to obey while making judgment calls for the greater good, yet no one else is allowed to demonstrate this ability because then Leo loses his only characteristic so far, being clever. Honestly, the characters have been doing okay, but the plot’s holding them back. So next time, instead of plot, I’m going to be doing the supports. All of them. We gotta figure out who’s getting paired up with who, after all. So stay tuned for me going insane, because now I have to deal with Peri talking. God...if you’re listening...please...look down upon the development team for Three Houses. If they’re making another fucking character like Peri, where she’s just infantile and murder-happy, give them a sign that they need to knock that shit off.

#fire emblem fates replay #fire emblem fates #everything about valla's involvement is garbage

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authorracheljoy · 6 years ago

Note

A writer's Ask Game 1 2 3 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49

1. Do you listen to music when you write?

Only when I’m typing up what I’ve written, honestly!

I can’t otherwise focus on the actual writing/editing if there’s music or other distracting noises so-

2. Are you a pantser or plotter?

Plotter all the way!

I gotta have an outline, otherwise my story loses focus and that’s NOT GOOD!

3. Computer or pen and paper?

Both, technically XD I use pen and paper for the drafting, and to get all my ideas down (and outline too of course), but then I typically use the computer for typing up what I’ve written :))

5. How much writing do you get done on an average day?

Less than I’d like to recently :/ I honestly NEED to get a better writing/editing schedule, but my days are just so consumed by other things to take away my attention, and it sucks. Both as an excuse and just a way of getting by when I have a manuscript that needs rewrites! D:

6. Single or multiple POV?

Single POV (at least for now? I’m really hoping to branch out with future WIPs)

7. Standalone or series?

Depends on the story idea, really!

If there’s enough content to expand upon after book 1, I typically will plan for sequels. I mean.. The Hunters Saga started out as just a standalone with a thought-about sequel, which turned into a trilogy, which is NOW a freaking QUADRILOGY!

So yeah, it kinda depends XD

8. Oldest WIP

As far as actual prose goes (no transcripts), my oldest WIP was called The Creatures of the Night Quartet, and… it’s TERRIBLE. Granted, I wrote it a few years before Antoinette Drake came to mind but STILL! It’s just horrible writing and the plot- what plot??

But if we’re talking WIPs that include transcript/script formats, I guess my oldest WIP would be SuperNova, which was a silly little sci-fi “story”! You can read about both of these prehistoric WIPs over on my Original Stories page!

9. Current WIP

The Hunters Saga of course! ^^

10. Do you set yourself deadlines?

Oh how I WISH I did that! >.>

11. Books and/or authors who influenced you the most

There… weren’t any really? I kinda just went with it? I mean, my first books were really heavily influenced by Twilight and vampire books in general. The Hunters Saga was slightly influenced by Richelle Mead’s Vampire Academy series but that’s about all that comes to mind :3

12. Describe your perfect writing space

All I need is a notebook, a pen, and a laptop!

The rest doesn’t really matter at all to me~

13. Describe your writing process from idea to polished

Well, usually my ideas come from dreams, or just scenes that come out of my head :) Then I first try to see if that certain idea/scene fits into any of my current WIPs and could be potentially included! If yes, then I do so! But if not… I typically try and write more around it :) After having an expanded idea and character list, I either develop the characters or make an outline for the story idea. Either works fine ^^ After the characters are developed enough and the outline is made, I get to writing! And after that? I edit it of course XD

14. How do you deal with self-doubts?

I try to remind my self how I became so incredibly lucky to land a publishing deal. I mean, sure, it’s not what I had planned and I have occasional doubt about my writing in general, and how people generally see and criticize my style and characters… I just gotta remind myself that I can’t please everyone. And if I have to have a goal in writing, it’s to tell a story the way I see it. Criticism is such a touchy subject, and some writers just flat out ignore that. And sometimes, that’s smart. But - and I’m getting seriously off-topic here but WELP - more often than not, that criticism turns out to be justified! I know my writing can be weak and uninteresting. But do I let that force me away from my passion? Not at all!

If you love writing and want to become a published author, you can’t do it half-assed! You have to want it wholeheartedly. You have to TRY to improve. You have to take criticism for what it is and what it might be-

OK I’m so off-topic, this is raising too much anxiety oops.. I’ll just leave it there though.. because it’s how I feel!

15. How do you deal with writer’s block?

I do something else - listen to music, draw, watch a movie, play a game- something other than writing (which is blocked, DUH) But yeah! I tend to step away from the manuscript for a bit and clear my head until ideas come rushing back :) And if I’m working through an outline, there’s a possibility of just. working on a different scene in a different chapter other than the one I’m stuck on at the moment ;3

16. How many drafts do you need until you’re satisfied with a project?

Usually 3 or 4, depending on how long and how detailed the drafts are :D

And if I’m REALLY lucky, I can do it in 2 but that’s actually VERY RARE for me so >.>

17. What writing habits or rituals do you have?

I have none!

I used to try (and fail) to write a page a day I guess XD

Now I just pray that I’ll be done with my current manuscript by the end of the year :X Urrggghhh

18. If you could collaborate with anyone, who would it be, and what would you write about?

My writing friend @mercurialsmile! We’ve attempted to write a crossover before but it never really went anywhere- mainly ‘cause of my focus on editing and both of our crazy work/school schedules :X Maybe that’ll change soon, though? I dunno but I hope they’d be willing to try again

19. How do you keep yourself motivated?

20. How many WIPs and story ideas do you have?

A LOT!

I may talk about my current WIP (The Hunters Saga) 24/7 on here, but I DO have other projects that have at least some ideas and characters :)

You can find them all HERE!

21. Who is/are your favorite character(s) to write?

Writing Toni is pretty much writing myself, so that’s always a fun time XD

I also like writing Gavin, Kira, Hannah and Ethan, among others ^^

22. Who is/are your favorite pairing(s) to write?

Toni and Henri aaaand Micah and Darius (which is coming soon to the series! Darius gotta be introduced first, guys!!)

23. Favorite author

I really enjoy Stephen King now that I’ve started reading his works~ Also, honorable mention to Kim Harrison for being amazing at writing about paranormal species cohabiting the earth together

24. Favorite genre to write and read

I love love LOVE writing romance and mysteries~

Aaand I pretty much like reading the things that I write so XD

25. Favorite part of writing

Getting the ideas down on paper for the first time and feeling that RELIEF!

26. Favorite writing program

Uhhhh… Microsoft Word??

27. Favorite line/scene

The Frying Pan Incident

28. Favorite side character

Dominic and Adam Hastings

29. Favorite villain

Oooh I can’t say their name but mmmmm they are BAD and I love it!!

30. Favorite idea you haven’t started on yet

A science-obsessed nerd and the head cheerleader fall for each other

Lesbians for the win!!

(basically the plot for Queen Bae, one of my WIPs!)

31. Least favorite part of writing

The EDITING!

The REWRITES!!

32. Most difficult character to write

Mmmmm probably Liz?

33. Have you ever killed a main character?

Yes (not gonna elaborate ‘cause it might count as a spoiler XD)

34. What was the hardest scene you ever had to write?

I won’t be too specific but.. it was a NSFW scene ;;;

35. What scene/story are you least looking forward to writing?

Uhhhmmm I don’t have one that I’m least looking forward to ^^

If I have a story, I write it. End of story.

Even if it might be crappy, I still love the idea.

I would never force myself to write something that I didn’t think deserved being written (if that makes sense??)

36. Last sentence you wrote

Other than a bit of knowledge beforehand, we know about the same for once.

Odd.

Unsettling.

37. First sentence or your current WIP

“I’m so sorry for your loss, my dear,” the man in black murmured to me, but I barely acknowledged his presence.

38. Weirdest story idea you’ve ever had

B-but.. ALL of my story ideas are WEIRD!

How could I possibly choose?!

39. Weirdest character concept you’ve ever had

Aliens that puff up/inflate their bodies when angered XD

40. Share some backstory for one of your characters

Dru was born as an only child, which is a true rarity in the lives of lycanthropes. Perhaps it was a sign that they were meant for something truly remarkable?

41. Any advice for new/beginning/young writers?

It’s sort of what I said when I was asked about doubts?

You can’t please everyone, so don’t try to.

Don’t pander. Don’t always give the readers what they want.

Satisfy yourself.

Take criticism; don’t try to ignore all of it. Who knows, some things might actually end up helping you become a better writer ;3

42. How do you feel about love triangles?

I was WAY too attached to them back in the day so!

If I have hints at a possible love triangle, I try to make it so the center of the triangle can have a clear choice as to who they’ll eventually get with (if anyone at all)! The only case I have where the love triangle kinda become a polyamorous relationship was with Nerissa, Melissa and Sergio :) Both girls had crushes on Sergio, and when he had to face those facts, he decided to help Nerissa and Melissa become friends and later- LOVERS! But anyway yeah, love triangles are hard for me to steer clear of, but I try my best ^^’

43. What do you do if/when characters don’t follow the outline?

I get really angry at them and throw rocks.

But no. I either try to get them back on track OR I just.. let them do their thing. Maybe the characters know the plot better than I do! XD

44. How much research do you do?

I don’t normally dive too deep into research unless the plot demands it, of course! As for the time and depth of research, it solely depends on what exactly I’m researching actually :) If I’m simply looking up Latin phrases or the names of the most famous authors of all time, it might take me a few days to absorb the info, and a week at most! But if I’m worldbuilding and creating new places and all that, well, THAT would take me a lot longer than a few days to a week! More like a month D:

45. How much world building do you do?

Not many of my stories have worlds not set in America/Europe/EARTH! Basically, I think I only have 1 or 2 worlds that even require building, and I have so little as far as plot goes that I haven’t had the substance to work with yet :) But maybe someday!

46. Do you reread your own stories?

Mmmm I used to?

Nowadays I just don’t have the time for that :/

47. Best way to procrastinate

Drawing art of my ocs instead of writing for my ocs XD

That, or making music playlists for my WIPs :3c

48. What’s the most self-insert character/scene you’ve ever written?

Toni Drake.

‘Nuff said!

As for a self-insert scene? I don’t think that’s occurred yet?

49. Which character would you most want to be friends with, if they were real?

Either Ethan, Clary or Hannah! ^^ They’re all such nice, friendly people~

Oh, and Kira of course! Can’t forget her XD I’d love to go shopping with her and enjoy our silly, light-hearted conversations

Thanks for the ask, Friendo ^^

A Writer’s Ask Game

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gamearamamegathons · 6 years ago

Text

Dragon Warrior IV: Fantasy Day Job

Circe here! In the third chapter we meet Taloon the merchant. Apparently he wants to be the world's greatest arms dealer, which sounds somewhat less than noble when you phrase it that way, but we're really just talking about swords here I guess, so that's not so bad. Every hero needs a sword, right? I mean, okay, not *every* hero but -- look, you gotta get that stuff somewhere. I guess blacksmiths would sound more ominous too if we called them 'weapons manufacturers', which is technically true, so we'll just chalk this up to tonally clumsy localization.

Taloon starts out in his small hometown of Lakanaba, where he has a wife, a kid, and a day job. In this chapter, the game goes a lot heavier on event scripting, so you can actually work for the local weapons shop and everything, which mostly involves standing still while customers walk up to you and answering 'yes' to all their questions so they buy stuff. But it's interesting, and notably, Taloon starts out very, very weak even compared to other level 1 characters, so you actually have some reason to work at his job and make some money living his day-to-day life for a bit. In the morning, he wakes up, his wife gives him lunch, and he goes off to work. At night, he goes home and says goodnight to his wife before going to sleep to do it all over again. I'll admit, this actually got me in a bit of a roleplaying mood, and even when I had Taloon going out and poking monsters with sharp objects, I still tried to go back home every night.

Eventually, though, you've gotta get together your own weapon and armor and set out. Taloon's big perk is that he seems to get more money and items from encounters, which means that once you get going, it's a lot easier to kit yourself out with pretty good equipment. This makes the earliest encounter zones pretty easy to handle. The first big hurdle Taloon has to cross is heading to a dungeon to the north to find the Iron Safe, an item that stops you from losing any gold on death. Yes, that's right, with this item in hand, you basically suffer no consequences for dying. It's kind of awesome, actually. And it's important, because amassing large quantities of gold without losing a bunch of it is going to be integral to Taloon's quest. This dungeon is kinda fun, 'cause you gotta run away from a giant boulder and swap the treasure with a stone, Indiana Jones-style. It's definitely a lot more involved than a lot of the old stuff, and it looks like they really wanted to show off what this game's engine was capable of compared to the previous ones.

Taloon's travels take us south to the castle of Bonmalmo. It's actually not far from Endor, which is where Taloon wants to get to, but the bridge is broken. You might remember Endor as being the endpoint of Alena's quest, so things are starting to connect together. Unfortunately, the king of Bonmalmo wants to invade Endor. Our quest to solve this whole problem involves us rescuing a guy from Lakanaba who's been imprisoned in Bonmalmo, then borrowing his dog to rescue the king's architect from magical foxes (yes, really) and then, once the bridges are fixed, talking to the prince of Bonmalmo and the princess of Endor, who want to marry, and convincing the king of Bonmalmo that a marriage would be better than a war. Phew.

If we were paying attention last chapter (and I was, don't worry) we would've already met a man in Endor who had a shop he wanted to sell so he could retire. This is Taloon's next goal, to start his own shop here. But it's pricey, so we need to find a good way to make 35K gold. Luckily, we can pick up some rumors of a rare artifact called the Silver Statue, and it turns out there's a guy in Endor who will pay a lot for it. So off we go. This dungeon is actually pretty tough, but luckily Taloon can hire a couple folks to help him out -- a warrior and a spellcaster. Even with their help, it's pretty rough going, but remember, even if we die, we don't lose any gold, so with that in mind, I happily took much greater risks than I would have normally. And this, eventually, led me to the Silver Statue. Selling the statue to the collector, plus some money I already had on hand, is enough to buy the shop, and Taloon's whole family moves to Endor with him. So that's done, but Taloon's quest isn't over yet. He wants to find this one awesome legendary sword, but that means helping another guy dig a tunnel further east. That'll be 60K gold, please.

Getting together the money is a bit more straightforward this time. The king wants 7 broad swords and 7 half-plate armors for his men. That's a lot, but with a combination of Taloon's ability to scrape together money and the fact that he can get monsters to drop those items semi-regularly, I was eventually able to deliver the whole order and get enough money to help get that tunnel finished. Completing this task brings Chapter 3 to a close.

Chapter 4 introduces us to the sisters Nara and Mara, dancers who are traveling from town to town seeking to take revenge on the man who killed their father, named...Balzack. I really have nothing to add to that, chalk it up to clumsy localization again. Nara is a Fortuneteller, and she has healing spells and is pretty competent in combat. Mara is a Dancer, and she has offensive spells, and is going to take a while to even find a weapon we can equip her with. The two of them together are a lot stronger than Taloon was, although they're admittedly a bit fragile. I can't tell if it was my impatience or because this was intended, but when I took their first dungeon, they were very weak, so I wasn't able to travel very deep at first. The monsters did give pretty good experience, though. Funnily enough, we actually managed to find an ally in the dungeon who joined us, and he was a very heavy hitter with a lot of HP, so he managed to carry the party pretty far even though the sisters were pretty weak. Again, I can't tell for sure if this is how I was supposed to do things or if I was hugely underleveled, but oh well. In this dungeon, we also find the Sphere of Silence, which is supposed to help us defeat Balzack.

Our journey eventually takes us to Keeleon, which is apparently ruled by an evil king. We get word that this is where Balzack is holed up, but we have to find a way to uncover the king's secret chambers. This involves going into a mine in a nearby town to find gunpowder, so we can make a loud noise with it and scare one of the king's servants into fleeing back to the chamber and revealing it to us. This is where we fight Balzack, who has apparently been turned into a monster by...evolution, or something. With the Sphere of Silence, we manage to take him down, but then the real king of Keeleon takes us on, and he's also an evolution-monster, except he totally kicks our ass in a clearly scripted beatdown. So we end up in jail. Luckily, we're able to find a boarding pass to get on a ship and flee Keeleon, heading to a port town to the north and getting the heck out of this entire messed up continent. We failed to kill Balzack though, since the king intervened before we could finish him off. Darn.

That's the end of the sisters' quest for now, though. Now, finally, it's time to get started on the main quest, which means we're going to play as...me! Yes, that's right, it's finally time to be the hero. We find that our hero had been raised in a hidden village, far away from civilization, and trained to be a hero until the age of seventeen. Oh, and we finally have a female sprite, so, life is pretty good. Well, that is, up until Necrosaro's forces find the village and burn it to the ground and kill everyone pretty much. So that sucks. We survive by hiding in a hidden basement, and one of our friends disguises herself as us so that the monsters think they killed the hero. That...sucks a lot, jeez. So, now we're on our own. But at the very least, we know that there are allies out in the world, the characters we've already met and played as, we just need to find them. It turns out that our hidden village is east of Endor, so we can find Taloon's tunnel and travel there. In Endor we meet Nara and Mara, who join the party and give us some much-needed extra power.

One thing that's immediately noticeable is that in this part of the game, our allies are not directly controllable -- we can only tell the hero what to do, and for everyone else, we have to set a tactics mode that will determine how they act. I dunno if I'm a huge fan of this approach, but I'm getting used to it.

At this point, I know we're supposed to find Taloon, but I'm a bit lost, so I just kind of wander around until I find another dungeon further east. This dungeon is strange -- it requires you to have three party members, and a little ways in you get separated from Nara and Mara, which sucked because they were like five levels higher than me. Then you find imposters who turn out to be monsters, and after you defeat them...you find more imposters who turn out to be monsters. What a mess. After meeting up with the sisters proper, we manage to find the Symbol of Faith, which is...uh...ah...? A thing. With no other clear direction, I rub the quest item on the immediate next obstacle, which is a guy who has a wagon we need to travel across the desert, but won't help us because he doesn't trust people. Apparently, rubbing this quest item on him causes him to realize the power of friendship, and he joins us and allows us to continue. After crossing the desert, I happen across another port town, and I hear people talking about Taloon preparing a boat, but it can't leave yet because of an...evil lighthouse or something, and Taloon's gone of to fix the lighthouse so it's not evil anymore. Uh, so I guess that's our next lead!

I'll admit, I'm quite wary of boats in Dragon Warrior games at this point, but we'll see how things go. I've quite liked traveling over the land with my companions and beating dungeons and meeting people and stuff, so I hope the game will continue on like this. The main quest is still in its early phase, so only time will tell where it will lead us.

#circe #marathon #dragon quest #dragon warrior iv

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itsbenedict · 7 years ago

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No Driver’s License: Session 0

Sometimes I make decisions, and I say to myself “Why did you make that decision? Why was this, of all things, the thing you decided to spend lots of time on, when you are potentially mortal and might have a limited amount of time in this universe?” I’m rarely, if ever, equipped to answer that question with anything other than a shrug.

So I started running a Madoka Magica tabletop campaign using the Magical Burst system, with some modifications to the rules (version 5 is in alpha, and also I needed to tweak a few mechanics to work with my story.) My dude Zero was relating to me his frustrations with a different PMMM tabletop campaign, and I immediately thought “damn, I can do better than that!”

(our discord’s icon. i have no idea how to credit the fanart i used to make this edit- i google image searched “kyubey” and the source for this image was someone’s themed 2048 clone).

So I called in Farn and had Zero rustle up some players from a groupchat he goes to, full of a bunch of fans of the work of Jenna Moran, and this started being a thing. (Apparently writing Cordyceps gets you a bunch of strangers eager to get on board with your creative projects! I recommend it.) I’m gonna post recaps of each session here, because I’m incapable of doing a thing and then not showing it off immediately.

Under the cut:

Magical Burst

Custom levelup system

Characters

Contracting scenes

Magical Burst

So the system I decided to use (on Zero’s rec) is called Magical Burst, and... it’s Madoka. There’s really no plausible deniability, here- the guy made a system for roleplaying in the PMMM setting, and then changed all the names around to dodge cease and desists. You have magical girls making contracts with tsukaima (incubators), fighting youma (witches), and accumulating Trauma (despair) that’ll fuck up their souls. There’s a few embellishments to keep things legally distinct, but all of it is easily ignored and the remainder repurposed as a Madoka Magica system, which is kind of the point.

The basic dice mechanic is rolling 2d6 plus a modifier. Most actions in the game that require a roll use that pattern, except they’re exploding dice if you’re doing a magic thing. 7 or less is a fail, 8+ is a normal effect, 11+ is a strong effect, and 15+ (usually in the event of rolling exploding dice) is an effect that’s stronger than intended and usually has some negative side effect. This is how it’ll go for combat rolls, out-of-combat magic actions, using talents, etc. That’s how dice do.

Custom levelup system

In standard Magical Burst, character advancement is handed out at the GM’s discretion, instead of through an experience system. Advancements can involve gaining stat points or learning new skills- but unfortunately in the alpha of version 5, all the cool specialized moves... don’t... exist yet. So apart from a couple things, the only real options would’ve been stat boosts, which, boring! Plus I have Ideas for how leveling up should interact with the narrative, so I decided to implement my own system:

The most important difference between this system and the basic Magical Burst system is that the Trauma meter has been replaced. During character creation, you have 21 Trauma Cells, which you must distribute to form a number of Trauma Tracks. These are meters that fill up over time as your characters suffer over the course of the game, and filling them is critical to character advancement. They replace the standard Trauma mechanic from Magical Burst.

Come up with a number of things that your character is upset about. Personal insecurities, life problems, character flaws- psychological weaknesses that, when attacked, darken your soul gem. These are your Trauma Tracks- one track for each one of these issues. (By no means are these the only problems your character is allowed to have, but they're the only ones that will have direct mechanical relevance.) Ignore the Bonds system in Magical Burst- Trauma points will be handed out as the situation calls for.

Player characters must have a minimum of 3 Trauma Tracks, and each Trauma Track must have a minimum of 3 Trauma Cells assigned to it. That aside, the length of those tracks is up to you- a longer track will take longer to fill, and represents an issue that simmers under the surface but doesn't yet threaten to destabilize the character. A shorter track represents an issue that's hard to ignore and is about to boil over, and will quickly become a problem for the character.

Your character's magical abilities are connected to these Trauma Tracks. When you first contract, you will have one distinct low-level magical ability for each Trauma Track you have. (MB 5e is incomplete and lacking in lists of specialized abilities, so we'll be loosey goosey here and you can just list the things you want in however much detail, and I'll figure out rules and numbers for the powers.) Generally, your starting abilities will be more powerful the fewer distinct Trauma Tracks you have, but your advancement options will be more limited.

When a Trauma Track is filled, an event will happen in the story. Once this event concludes- provided your character survives it- she will level up.

Leveling up is distinct from Magical Burst's Advancement system. I'll be handing out normal Advancements as described, but the options will be more limited- you won't be able to gain new magical Talents that way, but you can take a Tier-1 Specialization, stat boosts (with no restrictions on taking them multiple times), or custom nonmagical Talents if you have a good idea and don't mind hashing out numbers and balance with me.

Instead, when you level up, you cross off the appropriate Trauma Track, and choose one of your abilities to LOSE. In exchange, you'll receive a dot that can be spent to significantly upgrade one of your remaining abilities. Mark these dots on your character sheet- when you level up again, you'll be asked to sacrifice another ability, and if you choose to sacrifice an ability that already has dots, you'll get those dots back in addition to the new dot.

As you level up, your character will become more specialized, ultimately ending up with one powerful and potentially versatile ability that becomes the focus of their approach.

There are other side effects to leveling up this way, which will become evident.

There is a second type of character advancement, which will also become evident.

That’s direct from the document I distributed to players during character creation. In short- you have multiple experience gauges, and those fill up when your character faces something that really fucks them up emotionally. When you level up, you lose one skill and power up another skill, increasing your character’s specialization over time.

The first time someone levels up... well, I’ll laugh maniacally about some stuff, on account of those fun side effects- and it will become evident why I structured the system this way.

Characters

I’ve got... four or five players, currently. One of them is currently having unspecified issues with character creation and didn’t participate in Session 0, and might not be participating period? I’m not sure exactly. The other four have completed character creation, and I’ve run a brief scene with each of them, going through how they contracted. Let’s meet the cast so far!

Gomu Sakura (played by @thera-prickle)

Sakura’s an excitable trans girl who wished that her childhood friend would accept her identity. She takes to the whole magical girl thing like a fish to water- at least, so far. She has three fairly long Trauma Tracks- “Fear of Female Failure”, “Isolation from Peers”, and “Escaping into Books”.

As a magical girl, Sakura’s theme is candy- her abilities include the ability to summon hard candy armor to protect herself, a Spiderman-style taffy-shooting power, and gumdrop goggles that dispel illusions and let her see the unseen. She fights with two lollipop axes, and has a magical candy mouse/mousse named Maurice.

Kazama Ibara (played by @eternalfarnham)

Ibara is a hero of justice! Except heroes of justice are frowned upon in high school, and apparently get called “delinquents”. She wished for her life to run smoothly and not bother her, and she has four Trauma Tracks: “Lifestyle of a burnout", “Disdain for “victims””, “Can’t admit to being wrong”, and “Feeling unnecessary and unloved”

Ibara’s magical powers revolve around control over friction. She skates around the battlefield like it was an ice rink, and can knock foes around like they were billiard balls. She can also disintegrate stuff by reducing the friction holding it together, and cause enemy attention to “slip” right off. She wields a Monkey King-style segmented staff, with a weighted ball on the end.

Tsutsui Makoto (played by @exceedinglight)

A cult raised Makoto- she was prophesied to be their goddess, but... you know how cults do. Kept in captivity, eventually denounced as a “fake”, abused and imprisoned... it sucked bigtime. She wished to, uh, completely wipe out said cult. It was pretty brutal. She’s got four Trauma Tracks: “Feeling alienated from “normal” people”, “Lacks basic knowledge most people would have”, “Can’t handle the spotlight”, and “Has a sense of inadequacy”.

Makoto’s kinda earth-element aligned, and a lot of her magic has to do with manipulating attention. She can make enemies focus on or ignore things, summon a stone labyrinth to hide herself and her allies in, and talk to animals.

Kotono Yukari (played by @drazelic)

(if you’re wondering why this one looks like an actual artist did it, Zero drew this one for himself.)

Yukari drew a lot of short straws. Her parents died, her friends all got claimed by Kyubey, and after a long time agonizing over it, she ended up forced to waste her wish to save her own life. She has four Trauma Tracks: “I should have done something- everything that happened was my fault.”, "My purpose here is to gather power, and this cannot become my home. I must return and fix things.”, “I am alone, a stranger in a strange land.”, “I no longer fear death, nor wish to live. I persist because my job is not done, and nothing more.” ENGAGE EDGE MODE

Yukari’s powers involve time and prophecy, and oh god this is going to be hard to GM. She can store up and distribute Support Actions, set time-delay mortar attacks, and fire bullets that disappear and then reappear to strike enemies on later turns. It’s incredibly bullshit and I can’t wait to see how it hilariously breaks the game.

Contracting scenes

Gomu Sakura

Sakura was walking home from school, when some kinda witch barrier formed around her. First, she freaked out on seeing the people around her vanish and the sky turn red and stuff- and then she went inside a building and found these fucked-up plushie snakes with evil elephant heads that tried to kill her. Somehow, this convinced her that, actually, everything was as it should be! She was in a magical otherworld faced with monsters!

They'd almost be cute, if they weren't the size of a man, with sunken black pits for eyes. Also the trumpeting-hissing sort of sound they're making. That definitely ruins the cute.

Every book she’d ever read had taught her that this was HERO TIME, and she heroically stepped up to do battle!

This is the moment. Sakura knew, down in her bones, below the skin of rationality and the muscle of mundanity, that this would happen. The adrenaline flows. She swallows, holds her books in her hands like she is ready to throw them, and steps towards the beasts. A protagonist does not run from danger. She goes through it.

She got her ass kicked, because it turns out if you’re not a magical girl you can’t fight monsters good. Like, good effort, very cool moment, but she got pinned down pretty quick.

That’s when the Incubator showed up! It had three eyes, which was weird, but less weird than you and I would notice- it’s not like she’d met two-eyed Incubators before. It used some kind of telekinesis to blast the snelephants off her, and led her outside, where it was slightly less unsafe.

What are you doing in here?! What made you think those were safe to approach?!

Usually an Incubator has to do something to sell the target on the idea. Like, most of PMMM is about Madoka hanging around not contracting and agonizing over the decision while her friends suffer horribly in the background. It took a lot of convincing, there! With Sakura, though... the Incubator had to stop and inform her that she got to make a wish, before she went ahead and made the contract. The offer “be a magical girl and fight evil” was more than tempting enough to get her to agree immediately. Her normal life wasn’t treating her very well.

The rabbit shakes its head. I feel bad about this. It seems you have every reason to overlook the risks involved... Allow me to explain exactly what I am offering:

The three-eyed Incubator- which introduced itself as Tama-chan- did its best to try to explain to Sakura that being a magical girl was extremely dangerous, and that she could die, and that she could never go back to her normal life, and that her heart would become a magical vulnerability, and are you super sure because it doesn’t seem like you’re taking this decision very seriously-

Sakura proved impossible to dissuade- save a brief moment where she started wondering if maybe this was a Satan thing.

Make a contract with me, and become a magical girl.

She nods. "Yes. I w---" Sakura thinks for another second. "A contract? Like. One with the devil?"

What? No, like a regular contract.

After wishing that her childhood friend Kazuya would accept her and be friends again (she’d confessed she was transgender to him earlier, and it really didn’t go over well)- she became a magical girl and went berserk on some snelephants.

Kazama Ibara

Ibara was in detention, which wasn’t unusual. What was unusual was that her teacher vanished, the sky turned red, and a snarky voice in her head challenged her to a fight. That voice turned out to be an Incubator- but it wasn’t offering a contract, so much as the opportunity to be attacked by deadly monsters- such as a tiger-sized ceramic lucky cat statue. She decided this was a bad deal, and attempted to GTFO.

"Always promised myself if I was in a -- haunted building situation, I'd go out the window, no tricks, no waiting." Without the prelude of checking the locks, she hurls a chair at the windows with a two-handed swing.

The window shatters, leaving a wide and jagged hole large enough to leap through. Wait, says the voice, suddenly alarmed. Don't do that. That's not safe, it says.

She went out the window anyway- but the Incubator found out how to make it safe- or, safe-ish. It summoned a plush snelephant on the ground outside, to break her fall- and then try to kill her. Wait, what? ...Ignoring that weird behavior, she socked the snelephant in the face and immediately ran like hell.

Then she heard another voice in her head, asking about her safety. She told it that she’s running from monsters.

Good. Keep running. I think I have your signal- I'll catch up with you in a moment. And the first voice: Where'd you go? This is lame! I had you pegged as a fighter!

Eventually she ran outside the school grounds, and found the whole city seemed to have gone witch-barrier. She also found an Incubator running directly at her- so, of course,

"It's--it's the whole goddamn world --" Ibara almost chokes up when she sees the second cat, but aims a kick for where she anticipates it being, on pure delinquent reflex.

The kick connects, and the white cat goes flying a dozen yards. OW! CHRIST ON- why?!

After that little misunderstanding, the new Incubator- introduced as Tama-chan- helped her to fend off the other one, who’d caught up with a squad of monsters in tow. The evil incubator was named Nishi-chan, and Tama-chan offered Ibara a contract- magic powers, to help fight off Nishi-chan and her entourage. The incubators argued for a while- Nishi accused Tama of exploiting the danger to pressure a girl into a contract, and Tama accused Nishi of causing the damn danger in the first place, seriously!

After getting a picture of the risks involved in magical-girling from the Incubator’s arguments, Ibara got fed up with their bickering and insisted Tama-chan make her a magical girl. For her wish...

A wish? You want a wish? Okay, here -- I wish you and everyone else would get off my fucking back and let me DO WHAT I HAVE TO DO." She's squeezing white cat, too, a little harder than necessary. "Understand?!"

Tama-chan interpreted accordingly, and bish bash bosh, Ibara’s got magical powers. From there, we took the combat rules out for a test run- she took on two of the evil lucky cats (fun backstage fact: their name in my notes is “Waneki-neko”), and smashed them to bits. Nishi kept running, Ibara kept trying to close the distance while dispatching the monsters sent to slow her down- but eventually Tama-chan talked Ibara into finishing off the remaining monsters and disengaging.

Tsutsui Makoto

This one was pretty short. Makoto's hanging in a prison cell in the cultists’ compound, when suddenly origami archer monsters start shooting arrows at her from outside the door to her cell. She gets a good scare, but then Tama-chan shows up.

Nope! Nope! Not this! This is dumb! This is SO dumb! a high voice in her head says. There's a sound of impact, a rustling of papers, and then quiet from outside the cell.

Tama-chan waltzes into the cell, and- before talking about contracts- is very alarmed by how the girl she’d come to find is locked up like that.

It ignores your question. Oh, wow. Your hand! They did this to you? It... does something, and the chain holding you up snaps. You fall to the floor.

Makoto falls to her knees and stays the for a moment, panting. "Yeah, they figured out I'm not the one they're looking for," she mumbles. "I'm just a fraud."

There’s a misunderstanding that happens, here- Tama-chan assumes “they” are the origami monsters, and explains that she can’t be a fake magical girl if she could see the monsters attacking her.

After some confusion, Tama-chan gets around to offering Makoto a wish. Makoto wishes- considering that she’d spent her life locked up by a bunch of abusive cultists- to completely destroy said cult. Tama-chan... is taken aback by this.

The cat's eyes widen. This... I'm not so sure this was a good idea. This is kinda screaming... "not good idea". Are you sure your wish is mass murder? You don't want to reconsider that one?

Makoto tries to explain how the cultists made her life hell, how they deserved it, how she needs to be free- but Tama-chan is increasingly intimidated by her desperation. It’s starting to look like Makoto won’t get her wish.

That’s around when Nishi-chan drops from the ceiling, and is totally jazzed about the idea of granting her wish. And then does so.

Wait! This is wrong! the first cat says, but your body is already wracked by a force that feels like it should be pain but isn't. The cell is lit with a brilliant light. Wrong? Seriously! People are going to die! This is going too far!

"This is justice!"

Too far, Tama-chan? YOU'RE telling me we're going too far? The light fades, and you feel impossibly strong. And around you, the building is falling apart, the screams of cultists ringing loudly through the... night? Day? The time for not going too far was a long time ago, Tama-chan.

Nishi-chan- who’s more in the business of (???? a mystery ???) than babysitting new magical girls, leaves the newly-contracted Makoto to Tama-chan’s care in the wreckage of the cultists’ compound, and fucks off to who knows where. Makoto tells Tama-chan that she’s not planning on killing anyone else, and Tama-chan leads Makoto to Tokyo, where she claims she’ll be meeting with “some people I need you to meet”.

Kotono Yukari

The first three scenes took place at around the same time- a few days apart, maybe. This one takes place eighteen months ago.

We start in medias res, where Yukari has been in a horrible highway pileup. Her legs have been crushed by a semi truck, and she’s trapped and bleeding out and super duper about to die.

So, of course, who should show up but... not an Incubator?

Soon, she can see someone standing over her. "Oh god! Are you- oh, god, you're definitely not okay! Um..." You can see it's a magical girl. Her outfit is ridiculous. It's almost comical. Poofy, like a cloud. Draped head to toe in sequins. Lace sticking out every which way. You can barely make out her body underneath it. And it's all bright pink- blindingly, obnoxiously pink.

The magical girl first tries to heal her- and it works, but then the truck her legs are underneath crushes them again. Then she tries to move the truck, and can’t. She has a little bit of a freakout about how useless she is, and then runs off.

So that was kinda weird unsubtle foreshadowing for a character who’ll be relevant later!

Anyway then the Incubator shows up. It offers her a contract. Like they do. Weirdly, it’s not Kyubey, who talked to her before.

That apprehension was now gone. The spectre of worry that made apprehension had been thoroughly pushed out of her mental system by the very real fear of dying right here and right now. Any other day, that pitter-patter footstep would be the herald of uncertainty and internal turmoil. Here and now, it was the sound of hope itself. YES! Make me a magical girl! I'm ready! I said before I was still thinking but I don't care anymore! I'm ready! Save me! Please let me live I don't want to die here not like this I have so much more to do and live for please please please!

So the Incubator’s like, okay! Here goes!

Okay! it said, and a light shone from inside your chest. ...And then faded, and you still felt trapped and human. Crap. Hang on. Your wish was... The light started again. Okay, I think I've got it. So, you're... your potential is... crap! and the light faded again. Can you hold still? No, wait, this is weird. You- why would that matter?

After some finagling and weird questions, Yukari finally becomes a magical girl. The first thing she does is check her car, and try to save her parents, drag them out of the front of the car and save them. Can you guess how this goes? You get three guesses about how this goes. Here’s a hint: did you read her backstory earlier? Because this is that backstory.

There was no front of the car anymore. It'd been completely flattened by the collapse of that truck. Even her legs had been pinned- the truck had diagonally intersected most of the car, crushed all of it but a tiny corner where Yukari had been napping against the side of the car door, there was no front of the car anymore her parents had been sitting in the front of the car they were going to go buy some mapo tofu. Yukari emits a wordless cry and tries to rip her way through to the front of the car, somehow. She stops when she sees the first finger. Just a finger.

You acquire one point of Trauma on "I should have done something- everything that happened was my fault."

She tries to change her wish, but... that’s not a thing you can do. Tama-chan offers to try, but- after apparently consulting some mental resource- admits it’s not possible. So she has herself a little total breakdown! Her whole life just ended! It sucks a lot!

She first decides to start helping the other people involved with the crash. She pulls a trucker out of the truck she was trapped under... and then notices, oops, she’s surrounded by witnesses who just saw her transform into a magical girl. She flees, taking the trucker to the hospital, and Tama-chan sighs and starts wiping bystanders’ memories.

And that’s it for session 0! Next time: they team up, probably! Maybe there’s a fifth character! Who knows?!

#pmmm #magical burst #no driver's license

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kateofthecanals · 7 years ago

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For The (Not)Watch: Episode 7.2

Exposition Theatre Presents...

Apologies for the lateness of this recap, I assume many of these topics have already been covered elsewhere, but I have things to say nonetheless!!! The episode was far from the worst, though far from the best. Inoffensive for the most part and even included some rather nice moments (if you ignore the broader context... so, you know, the usual). Let’s start at the beginning...

It was a dark and stormy night. Tyrion was regaling the Dragon Queen about the circumstances of her own birth, which was a treacherous omen of things to come. Dany and Varys then decide to have a conversation that should have happened before he had even stepped aboard her ferry to Dragonstone. She confronts him about plotting to assassinate her back in Season 1 and he’s just like “whaddayagonnado?” and she makes him swear that he’ll actually tell her she sucks before actually betraying her. I’m sure that’ll work out swell. Varys assures her...

And Tyrion vouches for Varys because he’s “an excellent judge of character.”

Then Grey Worm has some kinda psychic episode and suddenly jumps in to tell Dany that Melisandre is in da house to say welcome to the neighborhood. Dany is cool with her being there because apparently the red priests helped bring “peace” to Meereen (really? when did that happen?) and Mel starts speaking to Dany in High Valyrian.

**We interrupt this program to bring you a prophecy that should have been mentioned 7 seasons ago. Had D&D realized this was actually an important plot point, they would have seeded it earlier. We now return to your regularly scheduling programming.**

Dany’s bummed that she’s not the Prince That Was Promised because she’s not a “prince”, then Missandei interrupts to tell Dany, WHOSE FIRST LANGUAGE IS HIGH VALYRIAN, that her interpretation of the prophecy is wrong -- the PTWP is totes gender-neutral, y’all! Mel won’t confirm or deny if Dany is the PTWP because even she is apparently skeptical of her own bullshit; instead she just tells Dany that she NEEDS to hook up with this cat Jon Snow, who “defeated” the Boltons and became “King in the North”. Dany’s like...

So is Tyrion, tbh. He jumps in and vouches for Jon too (remember, Excellent Judge of Character!) and because Dany has no opinions or thoughts of her own and can’t even properly translate her own mother tongue, she’s like okay cool, send a raven to Jon (where did they get ravens?).

Well, it must have been a FedEx Express Overnight™ raven cuz we cut immediately to Winterfell where Jon is already reading Tyrion’s letter. Sandra questions whether or not it’s really Tyrion but Jon says it’s legit because he included a Book Quote from the first season. And even though Jon got to know Tyrion pretty well on their journey to the Wall, he decides to be Condescending Ally and asks Sandra her opinion. Sandra then fulfills her “Tyrion’s such a nice guy!” quota for the season before Davos strolls up to finally deliver some dialogue. He has a “eureka” moment when he realizes that dragons can kill white walkers. Jon asks if he thinks he should meet with Dany as she Tyrion requested, and Davos says no, it’s too dangerous, but they should keep that shit in their back pocket for future consideration...

Then we hop to King’s Landing... Side Note: not only do all the main female characters dress alike this season, they all sound alike too. Seriously, watch these first three scenes with your eyes closed -- they all sound exactly the same!

Anyway, Cersei is in the throne room addressed Randyll “What Sword?” Tarly and some leftover Tyrells to try and convince him to join her cause against Dany, and Randyll doesn’t seem at all bothered by being ordered around by a woman. (So, I guess it’s cool for Arya and Brienne to be retconned as misogynists, but actual canon misogynists like Randyll Tarly are suddenly super cooperative and tolerant? Okay.) Cersei then starts throwing mad shade at Dany and her dad: “You remember the Mad King and the horrors he inflicted on his people...” <-- says the woman who literally did the thing that Jaime KILLED Aerys for only THREATENING to do. At this point, I began to wonder if it was actually common knowledge that Cersei blew up the sept; I guess there’s some plausible deniability, but Cersei herself doesn’t exactly seem like she has anything to hide in that regard...

After the meeting breaks up, Jaime takes Randyll aside and introduces himself to Dickon, who seems to be played by a new actor now. (BTW, how many times do you think D&D giggled like 10-year-olds at the name “Dick-On”?) Jaime questions why they even came, and Randyll says, “If my queen summons me, I answer the call. And I’ve heard what she does to those who defy her.” Which answers my question above -- he DOES know about the sept. Yet, just like kinslaying and Guest Right, terrorism is just NBD anymore. Randyll then waffles in his allegiance to Cersei and Olenna Tyrell, and I’m just.... Please. If Olenna, who is not even a Tyrell by blood, was really the only Tyrell left, do you REALLY think Randyll wouldn’t bounce at the first opportunity?? Then Jaime makes Randyll an offer he can’t refuse (Warden of the South) because the King’s Landing plot is basically The Godfather now.

Down at the Citadel, Archmaester Slughorn has a terminal prognosis for Jorah and he suggests that he just fall on his sword and get it over with. Jorah, I assume, is too busy wondering how he’s gonna make sweet love to Khaaleeesiiii with a stone wang...

Then we jump back to KL where Qyburn and Cersei are taking a little stroll through the dungeons where the dragon skulls are. Cersei says that Robert would come down there sometimes to look at them, or to band random whores, which seems extremely unlikely since Robert had an aneurysm every time the Targaryens were even mentioned. Cersei questions how they’re actually gonna be able to defeat Dany’s dragons, and Arnold Qyburnegger insists that “If it bleeds, we can kill it.” He then reveals his TOP SECRET MASTER PLAN!!! A really big crossbow. Somewhere Daryl Dixon just got the most massive boner...

Then we’re back on Dragonstone where Yara and Ellaria are yelling at Dany to just attack Dragonstone now while they have the opportunity and the forces. Tyrion’s all, “I got this, babe” and proceeds to lay out Dany’s plan for Dany (is it even Dany’s plan?), because why should the supposed leader and aspiring Queen be the one to give her troops their marching orders herself? The few lines she did have were just direct quotes from Tyrion. Anyway, Dany Tyrion tells Yara to escort Ellaria back to Dorne for some reason I don’t remember and I couldn’t help but wonder why they didn’t think of this before dragging Ellaria and Olenna all the way to Dragonstone just to send them back south again. BTW, D&D thought this scene was super Feminist because 4 women were in one scene together. I’m not making that up...

Then Dany and Olenna have a one-on-one in which Olenna delivers the first meme of Season 7: “You’re a dragon! Be a dragon!” T-shirts are now available in the HBO store. (Yes, I’m serious.)

We then take a break from “Game of Thrones” to bring you a very special episode of “As the Grey Worm Turns”. So, blah blah blah, Missandei visits Grey Worm in his quarters, whines about him leaving, he calls her his “weakness”, kisses her, she immediately disrobes -- seriously, that shit came off QUICK like

...and then he goes down on her. SIGH okay look... Yes, it was a lovely scene in and of itself, and I know this was D&D’s attempt at something “sweet” for a change, and YES it was the first CONSENSUAL sex scene we’ve gotten since, what, Season 3? But here’s the problem... First of all, there are so many other actual CANON romances in ASOIAF that have gone completely or virtually unexplored on this show, so for them to just invent this “romance” between a eunuch and a character who is actually supposed to 10 just feels utterly inane. Let’s be honest, guys, this scene happened for 2 reasons: (A) they wanted to see Nathalie Emmanuel naked again, and (B) penises are for sexual assault and comic relief ONLY on this show.

So, back at the Citadel, Slughorn is droning on about one thing or another when Sam says he found a couple of recorded cases of greyscale being cured, but Sluggy says don’t believe the hype because the procedure is too dangerous and risky and was outlawed. But... you guys... greyscale is like Westerosi AIDS, so even if the procedure is “risky”, don’t you think it’s worth maybe EXPLORING at the very least??? Anyway, I’m sure you can already guess what’s gonna happen next...

Yes, Sam sneaks into Jorah’s quarters with an assortment of paraphernalia, and the same dude who spent a solid 5 minutes last episode dry-heaving over some turds has suddenly decided he’s now Doogie Howser. He offers Jorah some rum to drink to dull the pain, since apparently milk of the poppy was outlawed while we weren’t looking, and it turns out that the cure for greyscale is to just scrape it off like an old paint job. Huh.

BTW, what the hell is with this new obsession with juxtaposing bodily fluids with food all of a sudden?? New fetish?? Anyway, that pie looked AMAZING. We’re not at what I assume is the Inn at the Crossroads where Arya is chilling waiting for her meal, special delivered by Iron Chef Hot Pie! She begins to eat and drink like a pig in the manner of her soulmate The Hound and makes a joke about baking one or two pies (BECAUSE SHE’S THE MARIE CALLENDER OF MURDER PIES GET IT); there’s also another brief reference to Briennebowl (sigh). Turns out, even fucking Hot Pie knows about Cersei blowing up the sept, ffs. He also knows something else that, for some reason, Arya doesn’t -- that the Starks took back Winterfell from the Boltons. Arya is SHOOK and frankly so am I because she spent 2 whole weeks at the Twins and NO ONE mentioned this?? Even the Lannister soldiers from last episode never brought it up?? Anyway, Arya’s like “oh shit I gotta go” and Hot Pie tells her that he prefers her as a girl because she’s “pretty” and OH how I wish she would have gotten more of a reaction from that, but then again this is GoT where only “idiot” girls would respond to being called pretty... When she leaves the inn, she hangs a louie north instead of south, having decided to keep her murdering more local.

This actually wasn’t that bad a scene, to be honest. I liked how Arya looked genuinely detached as she casually made references to murders she committed or would be committing... and then how she completely snaps out of it when she hears that Jon is in Winterfell. I think the success of this scene rests solely on Maisie’s shoulders though.

Speaking of WF, we then cut to Jon who is doing the thing where the scene opens on someone just staring blankly at a map. Maester Whatshisnameagain comes in to deliver Sam’s raven, cuz the Citadel is cheap as fuck and only uses UPS Ground. We then IMMEDIATELY jump to another council meeting where Jon announces Sam’s “news” that Dragonstone is lousy with dragonglass, and that this info has confirmed his decision to answer Dany’s Tyrion’s summons after all. And because Jon can NEVER seem to clue Sandra in on his plans BEFORE meetings, he blindsides her once again, prompting her to ONCE AGAIN speak up in defiance. Yes, it’s all just lame, manufactured, forced tension on D&D’s part, and what makes it even more infuriating is that it frames Sandra as a brat Every. Time. Though, in this case, everyone else in the room seems to agree with her, including Feminist Icon™ Lyanna Mormont -- Jon is their King and should NOT abandon them when winter is upon them. Jon’s like, “Hey YOU guys are the ones who wanted me to be KiTN, I never asked for it!” Which is a super cool thing to say in front of the rightful heir whose claim you stole. But hey, all is forgiven I guess when Jon oh-so generously declares that he’s leaving WF in Sansa’s hands while he’s gone. Hey, I kidnapped your child, would you mind babysitting for me for a bit? So, basically Jon abandons the North like he did the Night’s Watch, and aren’t we so glad that Sansa’s claim was completely ignored in favor of this super reliable dipshit?

Before he leaves, Jon ducks down into the crypts to meditate in front of Ned’s effigy when Littlefucker rolls up on him like a creep and Jon’s just OVER IT before it’s even begun...

LF then declares that he “loves” Sandra (cue every puking gif ever), and Jon immediately knocks his gross ass into the wall and tells him he’ll kill him if he ever touches his sister. Frankly, LF seemed kinda into it... ;-P

Jon then leaves and mounts his horse, waving goodbye to Sandra from her permanent perch on the walkway, and she’s all

Out in the woods, Arya’s building a fire when she notices her horse acting freaked out. She suddenly finds herself surrounded by VERY BAD BOYS snarling and growling at her when a huge figure comes up behind her and then...

Yeah, I admit it, I straight up cried seeing Arya and Nymeria together again. Of course, this is GoT, though, and we can’t have nice things, so it was shortlived. Yes, in the grand tradition of D&D reintroducing forgotten characters just to kill off/get rid of them again, I present: NYMERIA. So I went from tears to rage in less than a minute. These fucking assholes are more concerned about $$$$ than the VERY CRUCIAL FACT that the Stark kids are bonded to their wolves FOR LIFE and are GODDAMN WARGS, period. I hate them so much.

The next scene was filmed through a dirty coffee filter and I couldn’t see a damn thing, but horrible accents + cattiness = must be the Sand Snakes! Oh joy! I dunno what those fucking accents were; they sounded like fucking Apollonia when she first learned English, and I wanted to kill myself. Things just got worse from there when we jumped to another part of the ship (oh yeah, we’re on a ship btw) where Ellaria and Yara are cozying up to each other in front of Theon and begin to taunt him by feeling each other up and MAN I can’t wait for these bitches to die. The gropefest is mercifully interrupted then by the ship getting rammed, and they all run outside to see Euron’s sails in the firelight. Euron Both-Hands himself then makes one helluva entrance before getting down to some good ol’ murderin’. It’s a complete clusterfuck that’s not very well lit but I could see enough to know that he killed Obara and Nym...

PRO TIP: If you’re trying to establish the next big villain on your show, don’t have him kill off 2 of the most universally despised characters.

Not surprisingly, they spare Ellaria and Tyene “Bad Pussy” Sand (AKA the one Sand Snake most willing to take her top off), meanwhile Euron and Yara face off against one another. Euron gets the upper hand and is holding a knife to Yara’s throat as he calls to Theon. Theon looks back and forth between his shitperson sister and his psychopath uncle and decides mmmmmm NOPE

I’ve seen plenty of people criticizing Theon for this, and I think it’s utter bullshit. Like, I honestly believe that scene was intended to show us that Theon was still highly traumatized and triggered in that moment, much like Sandor during the Blackwater. I do not think that we, as viewers, were meant to look at that and come away thinking that Theon was being shitty or a coward. BUT HERE’S THE THING: you cannot spend 6 seasons conditioning your audience to believe that experiencing genuine trauma is a “weakness” or “foolish” and then expect everyone to be all cool and understanding when you suddenly decide to go for “realism”. Especially when last season featured a scene in which Yara told Theon to either get over it or just kill himself and it was framed as LEGITIMATELY GOOD ADVICE (which D&D even confirmed as such)!! So yeah, a retcon in which Theon’s trauma is addressed in a very logical and meaningful way is obviously going to receive backlash. This is the same show where Sansa had to be raped in order to be “strong”, so clearly a male character who’s experienced similar trauma should just “get over it” too, right? THAT is the lesson GoT is teaching its viewers, so it stands to reason that they would revolt when a character has a genuine PTSD episode. Not to mention the fact that Yara totally did not deserve Theon’s help or protection after the way she had treated him. Not to mention how SHE left HIM behind with Ramsay!! And later blamed HIM for it! Shit, I would leave her ass too. So, yeah, this scene was, I believe, intended to show that, no, Theon is NOT over it, because yelling at someone to just stop being sad about their trauma is not a magical cure. But it’s too late for this show to try and be sensitive about these sorts of things, because your viewers have been programmed NOT to accept it. So the one time D&D&Co choose to be authentic, it falls on deaf ears. No surprise there.

Quite a note to end on, for sure. Next week looks to be more of the same, so I’m stocking up on Red Bull now...

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